The Oculus Browser and some 2D Android apps are adding support for free-form resizing of browser windows on Quest 2, significantly improving the workflow when multitasking.
The feature was first noticed in a tweet, embedded below, by Joseph Simpson, Curator of the Extended Collection (a “library of links to the Immersive Web”).
It looks like the feature is rolling out gradually and isn’t available to everyone just yet — as is usually the case with Meta software updates, you’ll just have to keep checking to see if the feature is enabled for you. We’ve been able to try it on one Quest account, though it’s still missing from another two. Alongside the browser, Meta’s Multitasking Tech Lead, Eduardo Cuervo, confirmed it’s available for some Android apps too.
Whoever added free-form resizable windows to the Oculus Browser deserve a hug pic.twitter.com/4VtRWgbBXu
Previously, windows could be resized between three set horizontal distances — narrow, medium and wide — or using more precise adjustable horizontal resizing tool. However, this new free-form tool lets you grab a corner and manipulate the window into any size and aspect ratio you like, giving users much more freedom in how they work and multitask using Oculus Browser.
The biggest impact this has on multitasking is the ability to resize windows to a shape that feels more appropriate for the app or site you’re using. For example, if you’re using the Oculus Browser to watch some Disney+ content while working on a Google Docs page in a separate tab, you could now freeform resize the video tab to whatever size and aspect ratio you like, and then resize the Google Docs tab to a vertical orientation that fits the aspect ratio of the page.
Oculus Browser 18.1 is available now on the Meta Quest platform, though this feature seems to be rolling out independently of that update.
Want to try out a VR office setup or start doing some of your work from within VR at a virtual workspace? Here’s our guide on how to use Infinite Office on Oculus Quest 2.
Facebook announced Infinite Office back at Facebook Connect 2020 last September.
Despite what you might think, Infinite Office is not one app or a collective state that your Quest enters — it’s actually a series of features that are being progressively added to the Quest platform as part of Facebook’s push to make it a viable alternative for remote work and office environments.
You can use as many or as few of these features as you want. We’ve outlined the process of how to use them all, so you can set up your own Infinite Office that works for you. As more features are added, this guide will be updated.
Using Passthrough+ Home Environment
The big idea behind Infinite Office is that it’s a workspace operating in a halfway point between reality and virtual reality.
As such, a big part of the marketing and imagery used for Infinite Office focuses on bringing virtual screens and interactions into your real world. The most impactful way to do this is with the Passthrough+ virtual environment, pictured below, which brings a real-time view of your surroundings into VR while you work.
By default, the Quest uses a variety of fully virtual home environments. However, you can change over to the passthrough environment in the Quest settings.
Go to the Settings menu on your Quest, then scroll down to ‘Virtual Environment’. Here you can select ‘Passthrough+’, which will change your surroundings to a real-time, black and white feed from the Quest 2’s cameras.
This will allow you to bring up virtual browser windows while also still maintaining an awareness of your surroundings.
You can keep this on all the time, or just switch to it when you want to work in VR.
Connecting Your Bluetooth Keyboard
As of v28, Oculus Quest headsets can use Bluetooth to connect to a keyboard (and trackpad, if the keyboard has one) for use in VR while working.
You can connect any Bluetooth keyboard to the Quest, but one particular keyboard has increased functionality (see below).
To connect a Bluetooth keyboard, go to the Experimental Features section of the Quest settings menu.
Here, you can select ‘Bluetooth mouse and keyboard’ and connect your device to your Quest.
You can then use the keyboard (and trackpad, if it has one) in Oculus Browser or other apps to complete work in VR. This feature works well with the Passthrough+ home environment, as it allows you to see your keyboard while using it in VR.
Tracked Keyboard – Logitech K830
There’s one keyboard with extra functionality on Quest 2 — the Logitech K830.
Unlike other keyboards, connecting the K830 to your Quest will allow its position to be tracked and represented in VR at all times. This means a virtual representation of the keyboard will show in VR at all times — other keyboards can connect to the Quest via Bluetooth, but their position won’t be tracked and represented in VR.
You can connect the K830 like any other keyboard, and then adjust the visual appearance of the tracked keyboard in VR using the ‘Tracked Keyboard’ option in the Experimental Features settings tab.
The K830 is usually available at various stores online, but at the time of writing is currently sold out in most places due to high demand — you can check the Amazon listing for stock here.
Bring Your Desk Into VR
You can now bring your desk into VR and have it represented accurately in the Quest home environment. This places a desk model in the environment that is location and size accurate to your real desk at all times.
Note: While you can bring your desk into VR while using the Passthrough+ environment, it won’t show the VR desk model, as you can see your real desk when using this mode anyway. The desk model will only appear in the standard VR environments — switch to any of the regular home environments if you want to see the desk model fully represented in VR.
You can find the Bring Your Desk Into VR option in the Experimental Features tab on your Quest. Make sure you’re sitting in front of your desk, then press the Add/Remove button next to Bring Your Desk Into VR.
This will switch you over to the passthrough cameras, where you can define the length of your desk by touching your controller to one end of your desk, holding down your trigger and then moving the controller along the desk lengthways until you reach the opposite corner.
Next, you can place the controller face down on the desk and press the trigger to define the desk height. Once you’ve finished setup, the desk selection should line up with your real-life desk, as per the picture above.
Confirm your selection and you’re done – your Quest will now display your real-life desk in VR, as pictured above.
Stationary Boundary: Passthrough+
This experimental feature is not strictly an Infinite Office feature, but can used with the standard virtual environments as an alternative to using the full passthrough view.
While using this feature in a standard Quest environment, the headset will fade in sections of the passthrough camera feed as you get closer to the limits of your stationary boundary, instead of displaying the traditional guardian net.
This lets you quickly check your surroundings outside of VR without committing to the full Passthrough+ environment. By just moving your head to the limit of the stationary guardian, you will be able to see the passthrough feed and everything around you — useful if you want to grab a cup of tea or check something else in the room without taking off your headset.
This feature can be enabled in the Experimental Features tab of the Quest settings menu.
Working using Oculus Browser
Once you’ve enabled any combination of the features above, you can combine it all with Oculus Browser.
Oculus Browser is the best way to use all of the features above with a multi-window, web-based work setup. Oculus Browser supports more than one browser tab at a time with resizeable windows, essentially acting like a customizable multi-monitor desk setup.
For example, using the Passthrough+ environment, pairing a tracked K830 keyboard and using multiple Oculus Browser windows at once would give you a VR setup akin to a desk with a keyboard and multiple monitors.
There’s no specific setup required to use Oculus Browser in an Infinite Office context — if everything else has been setup, then the browser is just the natural way to use those features as part of your workflow. Try experimenting with what works for you.
Adding iOS Notifications In-VR
As of the recent v29 update, Oculus Quest headsets can now connect to iOS devices like iPhones to display notifications from specific apps. Android support is said to be coming soon.
Simply head to settings and find the Notifications tab. Here you can turn on ‘Phone Notifications in VR’ and then specify when you’ll get alerts for specific services (like Messages) and apps (like WhatsApp). You’ll then get in-VR alerts about incoming calls and other updates, and the Notifications tab will also store a log of alerts from different apps.
Have you tried using an Infinite Office setup? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below.
John Carmack made some comments on Twitter indicating new features are on the way for Oculus Browser in the new year, and that Facebook is “serious about making it a viable work platform.”
The comments came in response to a Twitter user who was running Wolfenstein 3D on Oculus Browser (by using a DOS emulator) on a Quest, which Carmack replied to. Here’s what he had to say (emphasis is our own):
“If the Oculus Browser dies under your torture, @jacobrossi is the PM to fix it. There are a lot of good things coming to the browser next year — we are serious about making it a viable work platform.“
We already know that Infinite Office is coming to the Quest 2 as an extension to Oculus Browser, offering an adjustable passthrough and Logitech wireless keyboard integration. This no doubt will significantly improve the Quest’s remote work capabilities, however that was already scheduled for a release this winter.
Given Carmack’s point about features specifically coming next year, it could be that Infinite Office has been delayed slightly and pushed back to 2021. Alternatively, Carmack may be referring to even more unannounced features that are in development.
Earlier in the year at Facebook Connect, Carmack noted in his unscripted annual keynote that he was ‘embarrassed‘ about Facebook’s social VR offering on Quest over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following on from these comments and his new ones about new features coming to Oculus Browser, it seems Carmack is keen to expand the Quest’s native social and remote work features over the next year.
John Carmack made some comments on Twitter indicating new features are on the way for Oculus Browser in the new year, and that Facebook is “serious about making it a viable work platform.”
The comments came in response to a Twitter user who was running Wolfenstein 3D on Oculus Browser (by using a DOS emulator) on a Quest, which Carmack replied to. Here’s what he had to say (emphasis is our own):
“If the Oculus Browser dies under your torture, @jacobrossi is the PM to fix it. There are a lot of good things coming to the browser next year — we are serious about making it a viable work platform.“
We already know that Infinite Office is coming to the Quest 2 as an extension to Oculus Browser, offering an adjustable passthrough and Logitech wireless keyboard integration. This no doubt will significantly improve the Quest’s remote work capabilities, however that was already scheduled for a release this winter.
Given Carmack’s point about features specifically coming next year, it could be that Infinite Office has been delayed slightly and pushed back to 2021. Alternatively, Carmack may be referring to even more unannounced features that are in development.
Earlier in the year at Facebook Connect, Carmack noted in his unscripted annual keynote that he was ‘embarrassed‘ about Facebook’s social VR offering on Quest over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following on from these comments and his new ones about new features coming to Oculus Browser, it seems Carmack is keen to expand the Quest’s native social and remote work features over the next year.
John Carmack made some comments on Twitter indicating new features are on the way for Oculus Browser in the new year, and that Facebook is “serious about making it a viable work platform.”
The comments came in response to a Twitter user who was running Wolfenstein 3D on Oculus Browser (by using a DOS emulator) on a Quest, which Carmack replied to. Here’s what he had to say (emphasis is our own):
“If the Oculus Browser dies under your torture, @jacobrossi is the PM to fix it. There are a lot of good things coming to the browser next year — we are serious about making it a viable work platform.“
We already know that Infinite Office is coming to the Quest 2 as an extension to Oculus Browser, offering an adjustable passthrough and Logitech wireless keyboard integration. This no doubt will significantly improve the Quest’s remote work capabilities, however that was already scheduled for a release this winter.
Given Carmack’s point about features specifically coming next year, it could be that Infinite Office has been delayed slightly and pushed back to 2021. Alternatively, Carmack may be referring to even more unannounced features that are in development.
Earlier in the year at Facebook Connect, Carmack noted in his unscripted annual keynote that he was ‘embarrassed‘ about Facebook’s social VR offering on Quest over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following on from these comments and his new ones about new features coming to Oculus Browser, it seems Carmack is keen to expand the Quest’s native social and remote work features over the next year.
ViRTC allows you to stream your PC screen to your Oculus Quest entirely through browsers on both ends. It’s free and you don’t install anything on either end.
To use it, simply navigate to ViRTC.app in a browser on your PC. You’ll get a 6 digit code. Now load up that same website in Oculus Browser on your Quest and enter the code. It’s really that simple.
You don’t need to install anything, and the streaming quality is surprisingly great. This article was written using it. Annoyingly though, ViRTC doesn’t send input- you need to use your PC’s mouse & keyboard.
Oculus Browser treats ViRTC as a fullscreen video, so you can actually use it to watch 3D or 360 videos from your PC too.
So what is this sorcery? ViRTC leverages WebRTC, the open source real time communications framework built into every modern web browser. If you’ve used voice or video calling in a browser, it was very likely powered by WebRTC. It operates peer to peer and your PC connects to your Quest directly.
Of course, streaming is only one of the many features of Virtual Desktop. The $20 app is a result of years of work. Virtual Desktop lets you precisely customize the size, position and curvature of your screen. It lets you use your Touch controllers or hands as a mouse pointer. It passes through Bluetooth gamepads and keyboards. It has special environments like a cinema. It works even outside your LAN. It supports multiple monitors. And with the patch on SideQuest, it even turns your Quest into a wireless PC VR headset.
But if all you want to do is view your PC screen in VR, ViRTC can do just that.
What Virtual Desktop doesn’t have though is passthrough support. Since ViRTC uses Oculus Browser, you can set your Oculus Home to Passthrough+ to stay aware of the real world. Facebook doesn’t yet let apps support passthrough, but plans to next year.
While the V15 update started rolling out to users, the redesigned UI is not enabled by default. It’s still considered an experimental feature, so if you want to try it out you’ll have to go to the experimental features menu in the Quest settings and turn it on. You’ll also be able to enable multiple browser windows in Oculus Browser in the same menu, which is another feature rolling out with V15. Enabling either feature will require you to restart your Quest before the changes take place.
As you can see in the embedded video, the new UI centers around a smaller window that sits closer to you than the old large menu. The old window style is still hanging in the back, but now only serves as a place to browse through the Home menu and the Oculus Store. Features like the Library and Settings menus have all been moved to the new quick access menu.
There’s also a quick access area for common settings, including volume, Wi-Fi, screen brightness and more — a very handy addition.
As you can see in the video, the new Oculus Home landing screen has an area for new high scores as well — allowing you to challenge the score of a friend in a certain game. All I could see on there was Beat Saber at the moment, but I’m sure more games will add support in the future.
Voice commands are also included in the update, and a prompt allowed me to try the feature out. However, it doesn’t seem to be working just yet. The Quest told me I could say things like ‘Play Beat Saber’ when using voice commands, but it never worked in practice. The Quest would be able to spell out what I said (so it was understanding me correctly) but it would not execute the action and claimed to not understand. Maybe the voice commands aren’t quite ready just yet — these are all experimental features, after all.
The V15 update also adds support for multiple Oculus Browsers windows open at once, which you can also see in the embedded video. It’s a neat little feature and while I can’t see myself using it, I’m sure someone out there will find a use for the functionality.
What do you think of the new Oculus Quest UI? Have you tried it out yourself yet? Let us know in the comments below.
While the V15 update started rolling out to users, the redesigned UI is not enabled by default. It’s still considered an experimental feature, so if you want to try it out you’ll have to go to the experimental features menu in the Quest settings and turn it on. You’ll also be able to enable multiple browser windows in Oculus Browser in the same menu, which is another feature rolling out with V15. Enabling either feature will require you to restart your Quest before the changes take place.
As you can see in the embedded video, the new UI centers around a smaller window that sits closer to you than the old large menu. The old window style is still hanging in the back, but now only serves as a place to browse through the Home menu and the Oculus Store. Features like the Library and Settings menus have all been moved to the new quick access menu.
There’s also a quick access area for common settings, including volume, Wi-Fi, screen brightness and more — a very handy addition.
As you can see in the video, the new Oculus Home landing screen has an area for new high scores as well — allowing you to challenge the score of a friend in a certain game. All I could see on there was Beat Saber at the moment, but I’m sure more games will add support in the future.
Voice commands are also included in the update, and a prompt allowed me to try the feature out. However, it doesn’t seem to be working just yet. The Quest told me I could say things like ‘Play Beat Saber’ when using voice commands, but it never worked in practice. The Quest would be able to spell out what I said (so it was understanding me correctly) but it would not execute the action and claimed to not understand. Maybe the voice commands aren’t quite ready just yet — these are all experimental features, after all.
The V15 update also adds support for multiple Oculus Browsers windows open at once, which you can also see in the embedded video. It’s a neat little feature and while I can’t see myself using it, I’m sure someone out there will find a use for the functionality.
What do you think of the new Oculus Quest UI? Have you tried it out yourself yet? Let us know in the comments below.
The new UI will be available as part of the V15 Oculus Quest firmware update, and has to be enabled in the ‘Experimental Features’ tab of the settings menu after installation. The firmware update also includes a few new features, such as speech-to-text options for the keyboard and a shortcut for Passthrough, alongside some Oculus Link bug fixes.
The firmware update will “become available throughout the week of March 23, 2020” according to Facebook. In the past, previous updates adopted a gradual rollout scheme with no set timeframe. The phrasing for this latest update seems to imply the gradual rollout will take place this week and may be available to all users by next week at the latest.
In addition to the UI overhaul, the update also includes a ‘Passthrough Shortcut’ experimental feature as well. This allows users to temporarily see the real world with Passthrough by double tapping the side of the headset. Oculus Browser will also integrate multi-window support in V15, as announced alongside the UI redesign.
Oculus Link received several bug fixes and improvements, including a fix for the black screen bug where Link would only show black video but still provide tracking and audio cues. Oculus Link also has a ‘Test Connection’ feature which will indicate to you, during setup, whether your connection is compatible, as well as the available bandwidth of the cable and the connection type.
New social features are also available in V15, such as joining parties through invitation notifications on the Oculus app before entering VR. Likewise, in-VR notifications have been visually updated and the Quest keyboard now offers a speech-to-text option for typing. That being said, Oculus notes that this speech-to-text feature will only be available ‘to a percentage of users at this time.’
As part of their Game Developers Showcase, Facebook revealed details of a future update to the Oculus Quest that will bring a redesigned user interface (UI). The new UI will allow easier access to settings and browser windows while in VR apps, without having to return to Oculus Home (in apps which support this).
In a blog post detailing the changes, Oculus stated that the the update features “a completely redesigned universal menu, new immersive overlays, and multi-window support for 2D apps starting with Oculus Browser.”
The new universal menu, pictured above, will replace the current menu design of Oculus Quest Home. It has many of the same features and functionality as the current menu, but is redesigned for ease of access and clarity.
The biggest change is the addition of new immersive overlays, which will allow the Quest menu to be brought up without leaving apps. This will allow users to quickly access menu options without returning to the Quest Home environment mid-VR session. This also integrates with social features, such as casting, live streaming, friend requests and Facebook social integration with Facebook Messenger.
Immersive overlays will not innately work with all VR apps — the feature will initially roll out with support for only WebXR apps in Oculus Browser. Following from that, Oculus Quest developers will need to individually integrate support for the feature in their own apps. The feature will then roll out to existing Oculus Quest apps over time, as developers integrate support and apps are updated. The screenshot provided by Oculus, pictured above, shows the Quest menu being brought up as an immersive display in Beat Saber.
The Quest will also soon support multi-window browsing for 2D apps. “Watch a video to crib gameplay tips in one window, check out your friends’ latest Facebook updates in another, and catch up on the day’s news in a third,” explained Facebook in their blog post. “You can open, close, and rearrange windows from a new control box above the window. Support for multiple windows will first come to Oculus Browser, with support for more 2D apps like Chats and Store coming later.”
These updates will all begin “rolling out this month” according to Facebook . This likely means that some users will receive the features before others, in a gradual roll-out process similar to previous updates.
Once the update is available on their device, users can opt-in to enable the new features in the Experimental Features section of the Oculus Quest settings app.
pic.twitter.com/4VtRWgbBXu
